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Monday, December 13, 2010

Federal Taxes Too High?? Blame CBC Expenses

A great image by Sun Media, showing CBC's
"money drain".

In 2007, an access request to CBC asked them to release how much money was spent in several areas, including salaries, equipment, programming, and the total cost of producing news and travel expenses, and guess what was found...CBC employees make on average 39% more than the average Canadian.

Rather than asking for specific amounts, such as news anchor Peter Mansbridge’s salary, the request was for the global total spent in a single year. Most of the information requested was stripped out.
The costs for CBC’s French language services were released but total costs for running English radio and television were withheld. CBC’s French services in the year ending March 2007 was $456,351,832.
Questions on equipment purchases, travel and programming went unanswered.

On the salary side, CBC spent $507,290,389 on salaries for full-time, temporary and contract personnel.
Full-time employees at CBC earned an average of $55,712 in 2007, compared to an annual income of $40,092 for employed Canadians – meaning CBC employees were paid 39% more than the average Canadian.

On Tuesday, Conservative MP Paul Calandra will ask members of the Commons access to information, ethics and privacy committee to support his call for a study of CBC’s reaction to access to information.
While CBC recently took out ads to trumpet openness there have been ongoing battles over access, including CBC fighting the information commissioner in court to keep some information secret.